ixPREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
The shape and parameters of this book are explained by the fact that it was
conceived as part of a series designed to replace the earlier Methuen History
of the Ancient World, though of course the latter had no volume with the
present scope, and the concept of ‘late antiquity’ still lay fi rmly in the future.
As it happens, while the present volume (the last chronologically in the series)
antedates the writing of that projected on the fourth century, it follows on
from my own book in another series, the Fontana History of the Ancient
World. Though entitled simply The Later Roman Empire, the latter effectively
ends where the present book begins, with Augustine as the bridge. The effect
therefore is that despite minor differences of format and scale between the
two, the reader will fi nd in them an introduction to the whole period of late
antiquity from, roughly, the reign of Diocletian (AD 284–305) to the late sixth
century AD, where A.H.M. Jones also ended his great work, The Later Roman
Empire (Oxford, 1964).
As most people will be well aware, this period has been the focus of a
great upsurge of interest in the generation that has passed since the publica-
tion of Jones’s massive work; in the past twenty years it has found its way
for the fi rst time on to ancient history syllabuses in many universities, with
corresponding effects on courses in medieval history and (where they exist)
Byzantine studies. The addition of two extra volumes to the new edition of
the Cambridge Ancient History (now in progress) is also symptomatic of this
changed perspective; together, they will cover the period from the death of
Constantine (AD 337) to the late sixth century. Peter Brown’s small book, The
World of Late Antiquity (London, 1971), still provides an exhilarating introduc-
tion from the perspective of cultural history. The infl uence of that book has
been enormous, yet despite this tremendous growth of interest in the period,
and despite a mass of more specialized publications, many of them excellent,
it is still diffi cult to fi nd a book or books in English which provide a general
introduction for students to the many and varied aspects of the period about
which they need to know. The present book adopts an approach that is part
chronological and part thematic. No real attempt can be made in such a com-
pass to provide a full narrative of events, and I have tried to do this only in
those parts where it seemed particularly necessary or where the evidence was
ix